Flagship

Trump gunman charged

The suspect in the second apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump was charged with two gun crimes Monday. According to reports, Ryan Routh had described Trump as a “buffoon” in a self-published book titled Ukraine’s Unwinnable War, writing Iran was “free to assassinate” him. Kyiv warned against conspiracy theories linking the suspect’s pro-Ukraine activism to the incident, but misinformation from both progressive and right-wing accounts surged in the aftermath. The thwarted shooting underscores that violence is “a feature not a bug of US political life,” The Guardian wrote, while The Atlantic’s David Frum argued that Trump has often “treated political violence as a resource,” pointing to bomb threats in Ohio after the former president claimed immigrants were eating pets.

TikTok argues against US ban

TikTok made its case against a potential ban before a US federal court Monday, arguing that its powerful algorithm was not controlled by China. The app is suing the US after President Joe Biden signed a bill requiring TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest from its US operations or face a ban, citing national security concerns. Its fate remains unclear, CNN reported, as the judges appeared skeptical of TikTok’s arguments, but also grilled the US government over First Amendment concerns. ByteDance, meanwhile, is developing its own artificial intelligence chip, The Information reported, in an effort to reduce reliance on US chip giant Nvidia amid intense AI competition in China.

First conviction under new HK law

A Hong Kong man who pleaded guilty to wearing a “seditious” T-shirt became the first person to be convicted under the city’s new national security law. He was arrested in June over his T-shirt that bore the 2019 protest slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times.” The city’s law, passed in March, expanded on legislation imposed by Beijing in 2020 that curtailed most free speech, raising the maximum prison sentence for sedition up to seven years, and 10 if prosecutors prove “collusion with foreign forces.” The development comes weeks after two editors were convicted of sedition under the Beijing law. Hong Kong’s crackdown has alarmed Western countries, Nikkei reported, reflected in the “conspicuous” absence of the US and other democracies at major summits in Hong Kong last week.

Russia to have world’s second-largest military

Russia will expand its army to 1.5 million active troops, making its military the world’s second-largest after China’s, as it seeks to eject Ukrainian forces from its Kursk region. A Carnegie expert questioned whether Moscow was prepared to fund the expansion — the third since the war began — given the strain on its defense budget and an unpopular draft that has seen hundreds of thousands flee the country. The move came as UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer considers allowing Kyiv to use its long-range missiles, which Vladimir Putin warned would put Russia “at war” with NATO. Permitting the weapons could jeopardize NATO’s efforts to avoid escalating the conflict, Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins argued: “Western politicians eager to pose as tough guys do peace no service by promising to back Zelenskiy to total victory.”

India aims for massive energy transition

India could more than double its clean electricity capacity by 2030 after financial firms pledged $386 billion to fund renewable projects in the world’s third-largest carbon emitting country. India has long struggled to meet its transition targets and is now scrambling to achieve its ambitious goal of 500 gigawatts of clean energy capacity by the end of the decade, with Indian conglomerates Adani and Reliance also committing to expanding their renewable output. But even as it inches closer to the goal, surging demand for electricity means India “still goes back to its most trusted source of power: coal,” The Associated Press reported. Growth in India’s coal-fired power output is expected to outpace renewable energy generation this year, Reuters reported.

China-US rare earth competition heats up

China extended its lead in the race to dominate the rare earth supply chain when it announced the discovery of a five million-tonne deposit of minerals last week. China produces 70% of the world’s rare earth elements, which power critical technologies like electric vehicle batteries and military weapons. In a bid to protect national security, the US is funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into new mining plants, but due to a slump in mineral prices since 2022, it is nowhere near its goal of undercutting China’s control over the market, Bloomberg reported. Japan took years to cut its dependence on Chinese rare earth supplies, so patience is critical, the CEO of an Australian producer said: “We do have to recognize that we’re playing a 30-year catch-up game.”

Starmer mulls Italy’s migrant plan

The UK has shown “great interest” in Italy’s plan of processing migrants’ asylum claims in Albania, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Monday after meeting with her UK counterpart. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer — under pressure from right-wing groups to address a surge in channel crossings — has pitched himself as a more “pragmatic” leader open to solutions regardless of ideologies, and he touted Meloni’s “remarkable progress” in tackling migration. But Politico wrote that his praise “won’t sit well” with factions of his center-left Labour Party, which campaigned on a promise to repeal the Conservative government’s plan to resettle asylum seekers in Rwanda. “Higher security and draconian deportation measures fail to dissuade desperate people from seeking asylum,” said one Labour lawmaker.

Thurs, Sept 19 | Washington, D.C. | RSVP

Join us this Thursday for discussions exploring the financial boom shaping the US sports gaming industry, and the critical policy challenges that come with it. As Congress considers federal rules around online sports betting, industry leaders will join Semafor on stage:

• Rep. Dina Titus (D) Nevada will offer unique insights into the role the gaming industry could play in the 2024 presidential race.
• Mark Ein, Washington Commanders will explore how sports betting is reshaping fan engagement.
• Lori Kalani, Chief Responsible Gaming Officer, DraftKings, will address rising concerns over gambling addiction, particularly among young people.
• Melonie Johnson, President of MGM National Harbor, will discuss ensuring fairness as gaming continues to expand.

RSVP for in-person or livestream here.

Earth gets a new ‘mini-moon’

Earth will gain a “mini-moon” for the next two months when it captures an asteroid in its gravitational pull. Asteroid 2024PT5, a smallish rock about 10 meters (30 feet) in diameter, will make one complete orbit of the Earth — significantly further out than our usual moon, even at its closest point — from Sep. 29, before sailing off into the distance again 53 days later. The Earth has gained new mini-moons before, sometimes for extended periods: Two confirmed examples are a 10-foot-wide asteroid that orbited us for a year from 2006 to 2007, and another, even smaller rock believed to have been around for three or four years before leaving in 2020.

Italy panics over espresso prices

Coffee bean prices are surging, raising the possibility of an affordable coffee crisis for Italians. As climate change hits bean harvests, and supply chains come under pressure from Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, the price of an espresso might spike from $1.30 to as high as $2.20, “still charmingly cheap for Londoners or New Yorkers,” the Financial Times noted, “but a shock for Romans.” Barista associations warned that price increases, especially for traditional coffee bars, were inevitable, even though baristas in Italy face social pressures to keep prices low. “Espresso is a necessity — like bread,” one coffee-bar industry representative said.

Online dating and marriage preferences

More Americans are meeting their romantic partners online, but that hasn’t changed the kind of people they end up with. Nearly half of all married couples in 2017 had met online, up from 2% in 1998 — but their preferences remained largely the same: They strongly preferred partners of more or less the same education levels, age, and race — although racial preferences became less significant between 1960 and 1980 — and tended to favor higher-income partners. The authors found that people have been increasingly marrying someone more like themselves, which “can account for approximately half of the increase in household income inequality between 1980 and 2020.”

September 17:

• The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation holds a meeting to set new bank merger policies.
• King Willem-Alexander presents the Dutch government’s 2025 budget.
• A partial lunar eclipse becomes visible in the Western Hemisphere.

The “life masks” of 740 trans and non-binary people make up the newest installation to top the fourth plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square. Artist Teresa Margolles, a former forensic pathologist who also works with corpses from the morgue attached to her Mexico City studio, was inspired by the Mesoamerican tradition of tzompantli — racks displaying the skulls of war captives or sacrificial victims. While the subjects of Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant) were, thankfully, alive, the work speaks to the violence faced by the trans community, especially in Latin America. The plaster masks will slowly degrade over two years in the London rain. “That’s the whole point,” she told The Guardian.

• Trump and Harris have the same oil problem.
• New York Times’ tech staff threatens strike during Election Day crunch.
• Kamala Harris and Hakeem Jeffries: The duo who could run Washington.